Health Care Reform Act aside, what are you doing to celebrate independence day? There are lots of 4th of July events. If you’re interested in 4th of July recipes, here’s a picture of my raw flag fruit dish – full of healthy food.

What’s the medical community reaction to the Health Care Reform Act Ruling?

If studies done BEFORE the Supreme Court ruling are any indication, physicians are sick of the requirements of Obamacare.

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Obamacare’s Horseless Chariot

Doctors, no fans of health insurance, are openly rooting that Obamacare will be struck down by SCOTUS, as appears to be the direction of things after last month’s oral arguments.

A recent poll by sermo.com, a physican’s website, revealed that 75 percent of doctors are against the health care law, and a survey by Deloitte, a major health consulting firm, found that 69 percent of physicians are “pessimistic about the future of medicine” because of the law.

Why? Because we physicians understand what many lawyers and judges don’t, that insurance – no matter what kind – presents a bureaucratic barrier between doctor and patient, between my desire to help you and actually being able to do so. The so-called Affordable Care Act increases the problem by extending it to more people rather than providing solutions. If Obamacare stands, its review boards and committees will make recommendations that are sure to stifle my creativity and interfere with my one-on-one doctoring even as they decide that one medical service is better than another and that I am being paid too much for procedures it has taken me decades to master.

I am concerned that the machinations of Obamacare will squelch a young person’s desire to become a doctor in the first place. At a time when we need more doctors, not less, the number of medical school applicants is down 3,000 applicants a year since 1996. Today’s graduating medical students are looking down the road into Obamacare’s overregulated poor paying future and are choosing to not become low paying primary care doctors like me. Studies have shown that the ranks of primary care internists have already decreased by a third from 1985 to 2008. That number is sure to double by 2014 unless the law is dismantled.

The fundamentals of Obamacare ignore the simple economic truths of supply and demand. I believe the individual mandate is unconstitutional because it is forcing people to buy a product. But beyond that, it doesn’t make sense to add more customers to an event that is already filled to capacity. If Obamacare were a carnival that can only admit 100 customers, then selling tickets to 200 will only lead to long lines, dissatisfied customers, and exhausted employees.

As one of those exhausted employees, I believe it is disingenuous for supporters of the law to make the claim that health care is a special case since we all get sick eventually. When you add 32 million more people to an overburdened system with too few doctors and those doctors we do have dropping out of insurances in droves, you are creating a perfect storm. It is one thing for the government to extend the National Health Service Corp or build more clinics to take care of the poor or insist that ERs don’t turn sick people away, it is quite another to extend insurance without the caretakers to work with it.

If the individual mandate stands, it will become necessary for the federal government to pass another mandate for doctors. If that sorry day ever comes, I will be compelled to join the ranks of those who shutter their windows and close their doors.

Marc Siegel MD is an associate professor of medicine and medical director of Doctor Radio at NYU Langone Medical Center, a member of the Fox News Medical A Team, and author of The Inner Pulse; Unlocking the Secret Code of Sickness and Health.

Today is 4th of July, our Independence Day – the birthday of the United States of America. And independence means freedom. Is the insurance mandate freedom?

One of the issues the founding fathers had was oppressive taxation by the British. The critical part of the Supreme Court decisions about the Health Care Reform Act the decision that the insurance mandate was a tax.

Who are we kidding?

President Barack Obama promised not to raise taxes. So obviously this is not a tax. Even aides to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney agree that the insurance mandate is not a tax. But the only reason the Health Care Reform Bill stands, is the notion that the mandate is a tax.

The United States was founded with a Declaration of Independence. The idea was that in this country, we would have freedom of choice and the ability to govern ourselves.

The United States Declaration of Independence includes the phrase “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”.

Access to health care is often a matter of Life and death.

Healthcare for all, regardless of pre-existing conditions may allow individuals to pursue Happiness.

There is always much to celebrate on the 4th of July. Obamacare may not be one of them. Consider: Does the Health Care Reform Act require us to give up our Liberty?